News In Brief

Shamir ready to call early election in Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has decided to bow to parliamentary pressure and hold early elections that could cut short his term of office, Cabinet ministers said Tuesday.

Mr. Shamir, whose official term of office was not due to end until November 1985, appeared to have lost his parliamentary majority because the small Tami Party introduced a bill Tuesday to dissolve the Knesset (parliament). Tami's three parliamentary votes are a key component in Shamir's right-wing coalition.

The opposition Labor Party, which scores higher than Shamir's Likud party by a wide margin in all public-opinion polls, wants the election to be held in late May. But

Sources in Shamir's party expected he would seek to delay an election until autumn.